How to Reduce Background Noise on Mic

You are all set to do your sound recording, but every time you speak, the microphone picks up some background noise. Aah!! Pretty annoying, right? As frustrating as it is, this problem has a solution. This read is entirely focused on that. Let’s cut to the chase and fix the real problem at hand: how to reduce background noise on the mic?

Move Closer to the Microphone to Reduce Background Noise

When you are talking right into a mic, it has a ‘high-speech-to-noise ratio’. The ratio is basically a numeric value in decibels (dB). It can be a positive or a negative number, or even zero. A signal-to-noise ratio of more than zero means that the signal level is higher than that of the noise. Basically, the bigger the ratio, the better will be the signal quality and reduced ambient sounds.

To get a clear, crisp recording sound, you need to have a high speech-to-noise ratio with minimized background noise. You can easily achieve this if you place the mic quite near your mouth. The ideal distance is about a palm’s length away from the mic. If you stand at a distance longer than that, the mic will lose its sensitivity. If you boost its sensitivity, you will consequently boost the ambient noise levels too and it is not gonna help to remove background noise.

The solution? Keep the mic right in front of you, and your mouth shouldn’t be more than a palm’s length away from it. Try this hack, and you’ll achieve a good level of noise suppression.

Battle the Plosives Better with Pop Filters

Plosive is a common concept in phonetics. It refers to a pulmonic consonant wherein your vocal tract blocks up to cease the airflow. This occlusion is made with your tongue tip, tongue’s body, glottis, or lips. Plosive sounds are basically the kind of sounds you make when the air in your lungs experiences a brief blockage making the air flow out from your mouth and nose with pressure. These sounds are mostly associated with the letters, b, d, g, k, p, and t like in the English words bag, kid, and tap.

When you are recording, the ‘t’, ‘p’, ‘b’, and ‘d’ sounds that you make are known as plosives. You are likely not to really notice them when you are speaking. But in a vocal recording, these noises certainly impact the sound clarity and quality and create unwanted background noise.

An effective remedy for the plosive noise reduction is to use pop filters on your microphone. Pop filters are thin membranes fashioned out of fabric that block out the plosives, in particular the ‘p’ sounds. These go by different names including mic covers, mic windscreens, and bluffers. All of them have slight differences, but their goal is the same: to reduce background noise.

By clipping a pop filter to the mic stand, you create a filter between your mouth and the mic. As a result, the plosive sounds die down to a great extent, and you get great audio quality. So if you have ever asked yourself: do mic covers reduce background noise? The answer is yes! 🙂

Make Sure the Electrical Sources are Clean to Minimize the Ambient Noise

Electrical circuits tend to create narrowband noise resulting in a ‘humming sound’ in your vocal recordings. Mostly, this happens in buildings that have outdated electrical wiring. Humming sounds also occur when you plug your audio gear into a power socket also shared by high-powered lights or appliances such as lights having dimmer switches.

To ascertain none of that pestering, humming background noise disturbs your audio recording, clean the electrical sources. You can use power conditioners for this purpose. A power conditioner is an electrical box that helps in getting rid of the alternating current ground loops that consequently lead to narrowband, background noise.

When buying a power conditioner for surrounding noise reduction, make sure to check its reviews and get one that has actually helped vocalists, podcasters, gamers, and other content creators remove background noise from their vocal recordings.

Get Dynamic Mics for Excellent Ambient Noise Reduction in Noisy Environments

There is always a huge debate going on amongst content creators about whether to go for dynamic or condenser mics. Basically, both types of mics are great and do reduce ambient noise. You just need to figure out which mic to use in what kind of place.

Dynamic or Condenser Mic?

Dynamic mics are less sensitive to sound as compared to condenser mics. Yes, this means that if you are using a condenser mic, it is going to pick up even the quietest of sounds and affect the overall audio quality. This also means that condenser mics are a big ‘no-no’ for noisy environments. In various noisy situations, dynamic microphones do have an edge.

Whenever you are recording in a rowdy environment with lots of background noises, opt for a dynamic mic. Make sure to hold it close to your mouth, and you will have a good speech-to-noise ratio, ultimately improving the overall sound quality.

Place the Mic on a Sturdy Stand

If you are using a high-end condenser or even dynamic mic, it will pick up even sounds you don’t really listen to in routine situations. Often, such sounds come from the equipment itself including the mic stand, or the mic’s cable if you don’t have a wireless mic.

Always use sturdy, well-maintained microphone stands, and get rid of the old ones as soon as they start creating unwanted background noises, such as buzzing noise in condenser mics. Try using a shock-mount mic clip, especially if you are using a condenser mic. It allows your mic to hover off the stand easily and nicely eliminates unwanted noise like keyboard noise or any other ambient noises.

Try Background Noise Reduction Software for Excellent Noise Suppression

There are special noise cancellation software applications that help reduce microphone background noise and any unwanted sounds from your audio recording. The good ones can actually suppress intermittent background noise, giving you clean and crisp recordings.

Background Noise Suppression Apps to the Rescue

So the next time, try recording directly to your laptop or computer. Make sure, you have installed software to remove background noise. There are many such programs including Krisp. Many of them have free trial versions too, or versions with limited features that are free for a lifetime.

You can find many noise suppression options and tools in such software apps such as acoustic echo cancellation that removes echoes in recordings, as well as voice cancellation that blocks all the unwanted sounds except for the speaker’s voice.

Invest in a High-End Microphone for Ultimate Noise Cancellation

If you are a professional content creator, or even a newbie with some funds set aside for content creation, and aspire to achieve excellent audio quality, it is time to invest in a high-end mic. If you have tried the various hacks shared above, but still can’t stop wondering ‘how to reduce background noise on the mic’, the problem is most likely with your microphone.

High-End Mics Come with Special Features

A normal mic, be it condenser or dynamic, isn’t equipped with pop filters, a capacitive mute option, voice isolation technology, and many other features to get rid of background noise. On the other hand, high-end microphones come with many such features that result in unmatched noise cancellation.

The market is brimming with many such mics such as the Shure MV7B, Elgato Wave 3, Audio Technica AT2020, and such top-notch mics that filter out background noise like a pro. If you’d like to know more about which is the best mic to remove background noise, we’ve got you covered.

What To Do Next?

Well, we have supplied you with quite a number of effective remedies for background noise. Now, it is time to stop chanting: how do I stop my mic from picking up background noise, and try them? Soon, you’ll see magic happen: impeccable sound quality. Let us know which hack worked out best for you.